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2 Easy Ways to Top Up Your Rainy Day Fund or Retirement Account

By Andy Hayes

We’ve talked a lot about automating your way to wealth – specifically, automating your savings and automating your retirement fund. All this talk of automation can leave you feeling a bit vulnerable – don’t worry, we are confident you’ll always have enough! But if you’re feeling like your daily funds are a bit short, here are 5 quick and easy ways to top up your rainy day fund or retirement account.

One of the best ways to save money is not by clipping coupons or trying to sell your prized possessions on eBay.. it’s to spend less!

I don’t know about you, but I know I feel like I’m spending a fortune on cable TV + internet. You can cut the cord on cable and just watch everything online, but if you’re not feeling like making that jump, just call and negotiate down your monthly fees.

As I do all of my work online, I also spend quite a bit of cash each month on recurring billing software… time trackers, graphics design programs, and more.

Cut your monthly recurring expenses.

Take a minute and look through your credit card on what gets auto-charged each month. Is there anything you’re not using that could get cut? (Example: If you are paying for the DVD option on Netflix but never use it, cut back. I’m not going to make you ditch Netflix entirely.)

After you’ve culled the list, consider trying to call and negotiate down your monthly recurring expenses. How do you do that? Easy: try one of these scripts that walk you through it. I haven’t done mine yet – but I’ve heard people have great results!

Review your monthly spending habits.

Take some time and review your bank statements from last month – 15 to 30 minutes is enough. I’d like for you to tally up how much you spend in terms of categories – food/drink, clothes/household products, travel/experiences, etc. Add up the numbers – does anything jump out at you as unusual or too much?

Now, once you’ve found some ways to save less – commit to putting those extra funds next month into a rainy day fund or your retirement account. Even if it’s $5 or $50 bucks, just a little can add up to a lot when you’re ready to buy a house or sail off into the retirement sunset.